


Worse Than Any Other Pain

by Lonessa



Series: RWBY Character Studies [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Adam appears in a dream, Gen, Set right after the end of V3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 21:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15590961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonessa/pseuds/Lonessa
Summary: "I love you."With every heartbeat that streak of red traveled farther away from the sun, and at every heartbeat she wilted a little more inside.(Yang's perspective on Ruby's departure)





	Worse Than Any Other Pain

"I love you."

She heard the words but the meaning behind them didn't reach her mind. They just bounced in her skull like laundry in the wash before settling at the very bottom, forgotten. The door never clicked shut, but there wasn't a point to it being shut anyway.

The sprouts of sunlight that invaded her window didn't warm her skin. All it did was make an annoying glare on the glass, scarring the picture perfect landscape she observed. The land burned gold but it couldn't set light to her prison in these walls.

Days went like clockwork. Dulled lilac eyes would crack open and her right arm raised so she could rub a hand down her face. The hand never did travel down her face, so she just laid there until she heard footsteps. She'd go to use both arms to prop herself up, hiss in pain as she put pressure on her newly acquired and sensitive stump, and then proceed to sit up with using one arm instead of two.

Trays of food would appear on her bedside table. Dad would speak, but the words never reached her ears. Once her body complained loud enough, she would eat whatever was served and taste ash in her mouth. She counted the leaves that fell from the tree in front of her window. Eventually her body would tire and she'd fall back to sleep, only to wake again.

Fire and ash invaded her dreams. She'd wiggle her fingers and revel in the weight of Ember Celica on both her wrists. Red would walk around the corner, with bull horns and a white mask with red eyes. The sound of metal sliding against metal, the sound of a shell ejecting from her weapon, was bliss.

And then she'd die.

Her death always jarred her from sleep. Her body felt cold but she was sweating, and that phantom limb would try to run down her face but it would never touch her skin again.

She watched fall turn to winter. Snow dusted the ground and sunlight made it glitter. Her eyes stayed dull.

Ruby started serving her meals instead of Dad. She refused to look at her, but the quiet lasted long and she didn't hear the tray be set down on the bedside table.

She turned her head slightly. The tray was offered to her. Her right arm automatically went to grab ahold of one of the sides, but the hand never gripped plastic.

Ruby set the tray in her lap. Ruby's fingertips brushed her blanketed legs but she didn't move to touch her in any other way.

"I love you."

She said nothing else, and left.

It happened every day for a week. Ruby would say nothing but I love you, but she would offer the tray and make her realize that her arm was gone all over again. Was this torture? Did Ruby want her to wallow even more in this?

Her throat would clog when her little sister entered the room. Her eyes would glisten and her veins would burn. It's the closest she's gotten to feeling rage.

"It happened." The tray was set on her lap, but the words were different than what she heard before. The change made her listen. "But it's not stopping me from moving forward. It's not stopping me from loving you."

Ruby left again. The words broiled in her soul as the food crumbled to ash in her mouth again. The drink was stale and unsatisfactory. The sunlight that made the snow glitter didn't warm her skin.

The view outside held the same dead trees and the same winter wonderland. It held the same cobble path and the same dips and hills. But something in the view changed.

She saw the remnants of JNPR. They were walking side by side away from her prison, grey packs bulging with supplies on their backs. Her body rid itself of air as she saw a fluttering red cape beside them.

Where was she going? Why was she walking away from the house? She's not allowed to leave the house. She's not allowed to leave. _She's not allowed._

She had a backpack on too. Her red cape was trapped under it but it still tried to move with the wind. Where was she going?

She felt herself die as Ruby stepped farther and farther away. She felt her life drain onto the floor and her dead eyes stare at the retreating form of her little sister.

She understood the sudden I love you's. She understood the small speech today. She knows now.

It was Ruby's goodbye.

The cape vanished around the bend. The absence of red hit her in the chest, and all the sudden her arm was being dismembered all over again. The pain coursing through her body was the first thing she felt in a month. Ruby left her. Ruby said goodbye and Ruby left her and she didn't even look at her when she did.

She heard Dad drop Ruby's lunch tray. She heard him sprinting down the hall, but she didn't bother to look. A raven peered at her on a thin branch before flying away. But all she saw was red that wasn't there and rose petals whispering goodbye.

Ruby traveled further away from the sun, into the dark to move forward. She wouldn't come back today, or tomorrow, or the next day. She was no fool. Ruby was gone. She failed Ruby again.

All because Yang couldn't say _I love you too._


End file.
